Origen of Alexandria

The judgment of God is to be expected … not only for those who do the things which are listed above but for all who have in any way done anything good or evil. What Paul wants to show here is that only God can judge rightly. For there are some crimes committed in which the deed is evil but the intention is not, e.g., when someone accidentally kills someone else. And there are other cases in which the deed may be good but the thought behind it is not, e.g., if someone shows pity not because God has commanded it but in order to win praise from men. And there are still other cases in which thought and deed are so interfused that one cannot distinguish which is good or evil. Given that only God knows the hearts of men and only he can discern the secrets of the mind, only he has the power to judge rightly.God has judged rightly in the case of those whose iniquities have been forgiven by the grace of baptism, whose sins have been covered by repentance and whose sin has not been imputed to them because of the glory of martyrdom. Rightness of judgment presupposes that the evil person will receive bad things and the good person good ones. Although the gifts and generosity of God do not allow of any dispute, nevertheless we shall show just how right the divine judgment is. It is commonly accepted that a good man should not be punished and that an evil man should not be rewarded with good. Suppose a man has at some point done evil. It is certain that at the time he was doing it he was evil. But if he repents of his previous deeds, turns his mind to the good and does what is right, says what is right, thinks what is right, desires what is right—does not that person seem good to you, and worthy to receive good things? Likewise, if someone is turned from what is good to what is evil, he will be judged now not to be good (which he was but is no longer) but rather evil, which he is now. For the deeds of both a good and an evil man pass away, but they shape and construct the mind of the doer according to their respective quality and leave it either good or bad and accordingly destined to receive either punishment or rewards. Therefore it will be unjust either for a good mind to be punished for evil deeds or for an evil mind to be rewarded for good deeds.

In the Scriptures a hard heart refers to a human mind which, like wax hardened by the cold of wickedness, cannot receive the imprint of God’s image. The same thing is called a dull heart elsewhere. Its opposite is a soft heart, which in the Scriptures is called a heart of flesh. … When someone knows what is good and does not do it, he is said to be contemptuous of all good things because of the hardness of his heart. For hardness of heart occurs when the mind has no feeling for a refined and spiritual understanding.…The day of wrath will be a day of vengeance and judgment, as is clear from many passages of Scripture. But note that it will also be a day of revelation, when all things are to be revealed. … Some people want to know why this day has been fixed for the end of the world, so that everyone who has died from the beginning to the end of time is held over for judgment on the last day. It is certain that the real reasons for this are concealed in the secret mysteries of God, but we shall try to give some explanation for it insofar as it is possible to do so in writing. There are many who, when they leave this life, leave behind them seeds of good or evil that will sprout after their deaths and become occasions either for salvation or for damnation for those who are left behind. I would say, for instance, that this applies to all those philosophers who founded depraved sects which are far from God, or who set up magical sacrileges, or who practiced astrology, not to mention those among us who promoted heresies and false teachings by the books they wrote, or who have brought about divisions, scandals and dissensions in the church. On the other side there is the work of the apostolic writings and the emergence through them of the universal church, conversion to God and the transformation of the entire world. These things will go on to the end of time, and therefore the judgment of God will not be just until the final results are known. This is what the apostle means when he says: “The sins of some men are conspicuous, pointing to judgment, but the sins of others appear later.”5
It may also be that the saints who are outside the body and who dwell with Christ may be doing something and working on our behalf after the example of the angels, who minister to us for our salvation. On the other hand, perhaps sinners who too have left the body are doing something in line with the disposition of their mind, and no less after the example of the fallen angels.… These things too are among the hidden things of God and have not been committed to writing. But they will be made known on the day of wrath and revelation.
Now let us consider what is meant by the just judgment of God, in which he will reward each one according to his works. First of all, we must reject the heretics who say that souls are good or evil by nature and maintain instead that God will reward each one according to his deeds and not according to his nature. Second, believers are to be instructed not to think that it is enough merely to believe [lacking fruit]; they ought to realize that the just judgment of God will reward each one according to his works.… Nor are Gentiles to be excluded from this, if they do good.

Given that Paul puts the Jews first and the Greeks second, both for punishment and for reward, we have to ask who is meant by these terms. If he meant by Jews those who are still under the law and who have not come to Christ, and by Greeks those who are Christians from among the Gentiles, it is clear that he would be going completely against the meaning of the gospel.It seems to me that the apostle has distinguished three types of people in this passage. First of all, he talks about those who are looking for glory and honor and immortality by patience in well-doing, whom God will reward with eternal life. Patience in well-doing is something which is certainly to be found in those who have endured suffering and struggle for the sake of godliness, and therefore, as we have already explained above, this must be said about Christians, among whom the martyrs are found.
But as I understand it, when Paul mentions Jews and Greeks he is talking about people who in neither case have become believers in Christ. It may happen that among those who are still under the law there will be someone who, because of pressure from his family and friends, has not believed in Christ but nevertheless does what is good, upholds righteousness, loves mercy, preserves chastity and continence, guards modesty and meekness, and does every good work. Although this person does not have eternal life—because despite the fact that he believes that there is only one true God he has not believed in his Son Jesus Christ, whom God has sent—nevertheless it may be that the glory of his works and the peace and honor which they bring may not perish.
But the Greek, that is the Gentile, if he does not have the law, is a law to himself, showing the work of the law in his heart, and motivated by natural reason, as we see that quite a few Gentiles are, either because they uphold righteousness or preserve chastity or maintain prudence, temperance and modesty. Although such a man is cut off from eternal life because he has not believed in Christ, and cannot enter the kingdom of heaven because he has not been born again of water and the Spirit, yet it appears from what the apostle says that he cannot entirely lose the glory, honor and peace of good works. For if it appears, according to what we discussed above, that the apostle condemned the Gentiles on the ground that although they knew God by their natural intelligence they did not glorify him as God, how can we not think that he can and must praise them if they recognize God by their behavior and glorify him? Therefore I do not think it can be doubted that someone who deserves to be condemned because of his evil deeds will also be considered worthy of the reward of good works if he does something good. Consider what the apostle says: “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according to what he has done in the body.”

The Gentiles need not keep the sabbaths or the new moons or the sacrifices which are written down in the law. For this law is not what is written on the hearts of the Gentiles. Rather it is that which can be discerned naturally, e.g., that they should not kill or commit adultery, that they should not steal nor bear false witness, that they should honor father and mother, etc. It may well be that since God is the one Creator of all, these things are written on the hearts of the Gentiles.… For the natural law may agree with the law of Moses in the spirit, if not in the letter. For how would anyone understand by nature that a child should be circumcised on the eighth day? … But we who feel that such things must be understood in a spiritual sense believe that we are not merely hearers of the law but doers of it also, being justified not according to the letter of the law, which in any case is so difficult that nobody could ever do it correctly, but according to the Spirit, which is the only way the law can ever be kept. This then is the work of the law which the apostle says even the Gentiles can fulfill. So when they do what the law says, it seems that they have the law written on their hearts by God, “not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God.”

We must examine carefully what this circumcision is which is of value, and what law this is which is profitable if it is kept, so that when we have understood his meaning we may be circumcised as well.… Paul teaches in the verses which follow that it is not the circumcision of the flesh which he is talking about but the circumcision of the heart, which is made by the Spirit and not according to the letter, and which receives its praise not from men but from God.Someone might raise the objection that, if it is true that the circumcision which the apostle regards as being profitable is nothing other than the cleansing of the soul and the rejection of all vices, why does he add here that it is profitable only if you keep the law, since circumcision does not exist apart from the observance of the law? It must be understood that circumcision is not just a matter of rejecting wickedness and ceasing from evil; it is also a matter of doing good and carrying out what is perfect. That is what keeping the law means. For there is no perfection in someone who merely desists from evil; rather it is found in him who does what is good.
Circumcision becomes uncircumcision if, after abstaining from evil, you fail to do what is good. For then you are considered to be an unbeliever. Obviously it is not possible for one who has been physically circumcised to get his foreskin back again, and so this text must be understood figuratively. For if the containment of evil which circumcision signifies is not matched by the works of faith, it is regarded as a form of wickedness. Even in the church, if someone is “circumcised” by the grace of baptism and then becomes a transgressor of the law of Christ, the circumcision of baptism is reckoned to him as uncircumcision, because “faith without works is dead.”
Consider also whether in this passage the following interpretation may be accepted, that even after the coming of Christ physical circumcision, observed according to the law, might be said to be of some value to those who keep the law on the same principle as that which obtained at the beginning of our faith, when it was still observed by those who believed in Christ.… Now if this (Christian) circumcision were to be turned into uncircumcision, not only would it be of no benefit to anyone, it would call down even greater judgment on the one who by the circumcision of the flesh appeared to be proclaiming the observance of the law but was in fact breaking it. And this judgment would be given by the one who had not submitted to physical circumcision but who nevertheless did the works of the law. Whether this interpretation is to be accepted or not is up to you, the reader, to decide.
Circumcision was of no value to those who thought they could be justified by it, but it was of value to those who thought that they might not come to Christ if they were forbidden to circumcise their children. For in the beginning there were some who thought of circumcision mainly as a recognizable symbol of their nationality and kept it up for that reason. They might have been hindered from coming to faith if they had been forbidden to do something which they could not do without. Therefore the apostle says this to them, so as not to close the door of faith to them.

We must realize that in some people these two things go together while in others they do not. For there are some things which have their beginning inside a man and which proceed from there to the outside, but there are other things which start on the outside and work their way inside. What I mean is this. If chastity begins inside a man, there is no doubt that it will manifest itself on the outside of him as well. For it is hardly possible if someone does not commit adultery in his heart that he should do so in his body. But it does not follow from this that if chastity starts as an outward observance that it will necessarily penetrate to the point of inner continence, so that if someone does not commit adultery in his body it will follow immediately that he does not do so in his heart either. Therefore the circumcision of the inner and the outer man must be understood allegorically as meaning that the inner man should not lust in his heart, nor should the outer man surrender to lust in his body, so that he whom the apostle says is no longer in the flesh but in the Spirit, and who mortifies the deeds of the flesh by the Spirit, may be said to be circumcised in the flesh as well.It is true that he who has been circumcised has given up a part of his flesh to perdition and kept a part of it unharmed. The part that is lost is, I think, what is referred to in the following text: “All flesh is grass, and all its glory is as the flower of the field.” But the flesh which is retained is, I think, a type of that flesh of which it is said: “All flesh shall see the salvation of God.” It is the task of those ears which can hear to determine which is which.